Five rockets to blast off from Vostochny cosmodrome in 2020, Rogozin tells Putin

Also, Putin demanded that Vostochny’s facilities should be used more intensively

VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME, September 6. /TASS/. Five rockets will be launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome in 2020, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

"The schedule of next year’s launches is this: April, May, June, July and November," Rogozin said while demonstrating a corresponding diagram.

At a conference devoted to infrastructure development Putin demanded construction work at Vostochny and space rocket launches should proceed on time.

"I expect you to display more responsible attitude and faster pace of work," Putin said, adding that a great deal was to be done to develop the cosmodrome.

Also, Putin demanded that Vostochny’s facilities should be used more intensively.

"There have been five launches from Vostochny. Now the workload on its facilities can be increased more seriously," he said.

Vostochny is Russia’s first national civilian cosmodrome. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on building it on November 6, 2007. In the long term Vostochny would become Russia’s full-fledged gateway to outer space. It will be used to launch different satellites, inter-planetary probes and manned spacecraft, which currently can be put in space only from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur, which Russia uses on lease terms.

Twenty kilometers southwest of the cosmodrome a nearby city, called Tsiolkovsky, began to be built. A total of 115 kilometers of automobile roads and 115 kilometers of railways have been laid to connect Vostochny’s facilities, the cosmodrome and its administrative center.